Genady P. Cherepanov ON THE COLLAPSE OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER IN NEW YORK ON SEPT. 11, 2001 The generally-accepted explanation of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001 is based on the speculative “theory” [1] of progressive buckling of bearing columns at the speed of free fall triggered by creep buckling of the columns of the floor subject to the conflagration from the spilled fuel and by dynamic impact of the upper structure. <...> The “theory” cannot explain the free fall, explosion sound, and pulverization of the buildings as well as other facts of this event. <...> The simultaneous collapse of the neighboring 47-story tower directly contradicts to the “theory”. <...> It is shown that, consistent with all known facts of the matter, the scenario of all collapses was this: (i) heating of bearing columns in the “hot” spot caused high compressive thermal stresses in these columns, (ii) the thermal stresses combined with gravitational and technological stresses triggered a fracture wave, and (iii) the fracture wave disintegrated the entire building by invisible cracks for less than 0.1 s producing the sound of explosion and providing the conditions necessary for free fall of steel fragments and dust clouds of tiny fragments of glass, marble and concrete. <...> Keywords: World Trade Center, tower, building, column, collapse, explosion, structure free fall, debris, structure pulverization, fracture wave, thermal stresses, internal stresses, creep, buckling, dynamic impact, progressive failure, triggering mechanism, accurate vs. approximate analysis. 1. <...> Evidently, the public has not, as yet, accepted the official substantiated by Bazant and Zhou (2002), see [1]. <...> Meanwhile, the engineering establishment “theory” first published and recognized the “theory” as correct and comprehensive because no critical or alternative views have been published, until recently. <...> The most important conclusion Bazant and Zhou analysis was that avoidable consequence of the derived the WTC collapse was an unterror act. wise, all people would have been evacuated from the buildings during the fire, and from their Other330 firemen would not have been ordered to climb up, so that, instead of three thousand, the fatalities would not have exceeded about one hundred people. <...> My point proved below is that Bazant&Zhou’s analysis and their conclusion are wrong and that the collapse was <...>